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First Line: My father-in-law writes from umbria (where peasants eat songbirds
Subject(s): Comedy; Johnson, Lyndon Baines (1908-1973); Umbria, Italy


My father-in-law writes from Umbria (where peasants eat songbirds for lunch and
pray beneath frescoes by Giotto): Saturday, 30 Jan. (last day of the season
wherein big men can kill little birds).

Lyndon Johnson, while being escorted by a young Marine who said, "That one over
there is your helicopter, Sir," replied, placing his arm around the boy, "Son,
they're all my helicopters."

Sam said, "I might be white bread, but there is one pissed-off nigger in my
heart."

McPherson says he doesn't see anything in the world worth coming back for. He
wants to get off the wheel, says, "I don't want to come back as anything -- not
even a bumblebee."

So I say, "Oh, Jim, you'd make a good bumblebee," but I was thinking: That
should be enough for anybody's God.

It would be trite to describe the clocksmith's house -- the way it sounded like
bees in there. "You can never have enough clocks in your house." This from a
man who had thousands in his. I asked, "You probably don't even hear them
anymore." He said, "I hear them when they stop."

Lyle said, "It's all right to be a fool; it's just not all right to be a old
fool."

Steve, the banjo wasn't all they smashed. It was every window. It was every
thing I had. You don't want to feel the wind blow through your house that way.

Another friend said, "I am chained to the earth to pay for the freedom of my
eyes."


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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